Career Ed Lounge is embedded in over eighty professional development portals serving the career and technical education community. Performance Groups in the Lounge are integrated with related learning opportunities offered on these portals. With a few exceptions, Performance Groups are also publicly available to any member of the Lounge to maximize peer-to-peer learning and performance outcomes.
I like your suggestion on using web cameras to enhance communication. I'm currentl taking online courses. I'm not aware of this option by way of syllabus or email from instructors. I will have to go back and check thoroughly, I may have overlooked them. Otherwise I will suggest to instructor's web cam conferences. I could really use them at times.